May 4, 2014
by GUTS
- This week we celebrated May Day! Thousands across Canada gathered to show their support for workers rights and protest the ongoing exploitation and impoverishment of workers. Eager to learn more about this historical day? Check out Rosa Luxembourg’s “What are the origins of May Day?“
- A number of the estimated 239 missing Nigerian girls have reportedly been sold as brides to militants in Chad and Cameroon. This disturbing sale of hundreds of sixteen to eighteen-year-old girls has not yet been verified, and families in Nigeria continue to search for their missing daughters. Here is what we know (and don’t know) about the kidnapping.
- From Anne Boyer’s “Questions for Poets“:
what is
the direct trial of this today for the poet if there has not yet been any poetry, any poetry? If what has gone on before us in the name of poetry has been in the service of tyrants and kings and presidents and CEOs? If it has been written into the clamoring silence of women and girls? If what is poetry cannot be written until the infinite servitude of women has ended? If it cannot be written until the property-less sensorium has arrived? If it cannot be written till the revolution in its service has come?
- Is the new season of Mad Men Peggy’s season? Laura Tanenbaum’s new Jacobin piece considers Peggy’s purported feminism and argues that, despite failing to participate in organized social movements of her time, Peggy’s experience is reminiscent of the struggles contemporary feminism aligns itself against: “We want Peggy to triumph, but we should not have illusions about what triumph looks like in the venue she’s in. This doesn’t mean that Peggy is an unappealing, proto-Sheryl Sandberg or some such. It just means that when it comes to work, we are all still living in the Before.”
- Independent online journal, Feral Feminisms is looking for contributors to their next issue. The Canadian feminist publication’s next issue will tackle settler colonialism via feminist analysis. Also this week, cléo journal put a call out for feminist articles about and reviews of films about labour. Have something to say? Submit to one of these incredible feminist journals!
- As part of our rolling release of Issue 2, GUTS contributor Cynthia Spring writes about the relevancy of the 1970s Wages for Housework campaign in our increasingly feminized workforce. In a similar vein, E. Alex Jung’s Dissent piece investigates a new campaign that grounds itself in this historical feminist movement: “Wages for Facebook is a cultural intervention—an attempt to unsettle what many of us have already come to accept as normal: the digitization of our subjectivities and relationships as nodes of production, and the correlative slide into self-promotion as a means of existence. When we accepted these services in the breathless spirit of technological utopianism, did we really know what we were agreeing to?”
- Shawn Atleo resigned from his second term as National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations on Friday. Atleo’s support for the Harper government’s proposed overhaul of Aboriginal education systems caused members of Aboriginal communities across Canada to speak out against the controversial act, pressuring Atleo to resign. Read Pamela Palmater’s piece: Aboriginal peoples must stay united against the First Nations Education Act.
- “My mother, like all writers, toiled in silence, propelled by private demons, encouraged by few readers and yet determined to recreate what had been so violently destroyed so that at least on paper it would continue to exist. That is no small accomplishment.” Gordie Morgantaler’s moving piece on her famous parents.
- Sarah Jane Glynn rethinks the proclaimed “boy crisis” and voices alternative concerns over the “behaviour gap” that’s becoming increasingly prevalent in elementary schools: “The advantages that girls have in elementary school do not translate into better outcomes in the workplace. The same traditionally feminine characteristics that may help girls in school also end up translating into traditionally feminine jobs centered around nurturing, service, and taking care of other people’s needs. These jobs pay less than those that are centered on independence and toughness.”
- “I didn’t really think in terms like beautiful/ugly or shame/confidence. I knew that my disability was permanent and that I was a financial and physical burden to my family. Those were the facts. I was sometimes told I looked nice, but I didn’t expect to hear words like beautiful or stunning associated with any part of my body. Ever. Those words were for able-bodied people.” Why Natalie E. Illum no longer apologizes for her crutches.
- And start your Sunday right by digging into a new Zadie Smith story.